


By Any Other Name Are Demons Called

by PandaFlower



Category: Naruto
Genre: Cults, Hunter Tobirama, M/M, Religious Imagery, Supernatural Elements, Vampire madara, Vampires, more tags as they become relevant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2019-10-04 04:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17297855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PandaFlower/pseuds/PandaFlower
Summary: The thing about garnering a vampire's interest is; Madara is the least of Tobirama's problems.That would be the demon cult dogging his heels.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peppymint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppymint/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Children of War](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14738936) by [peppymint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppymint/pseuds/peppymint). 



Tobirama stood solemn, exhausted vigil as the pyre burned, hat doffed in respect for the deceased, the smell of burning oil, elm, and flesh acrid in his nose and mouth. Thick smoke trailed off into the early evening air in greasy spirals, forming the occasional malevolent faces.

“Is that it then?” Old Tazuna asked, leaning wearily on his shovel, the lines of grief and exhaustion carved deep in his face. He clutched a near-empty flask in his shaking hand, having been drinking near constantly since Tobirama met him.

Tobirama nodded curtly, “Yes. I apologize for your loss. I know it’s never easy when it’s one of your own.” The most fraught cases were always the ones that hit far too close to home. It made people hesitate. Hesitation inevitably got them killed.

“Inari will be heartbroken to know his father was a monster.” Tazuna sighed sadly, slugging back the last of his flask.

Tobirama grasped Tazuna’s shoulder firmly, not a naturally comforting man but trying nonetheless. “He wasn’t,” he insisted, countenance made fierce with conviction. “The man he knew, the man who raised him, he wasn’t a monster. He was a  _ good man. _ The monstrous thing that stole his body in death? That wasn’t Inari’s father, I promise you.”

The man, Kaiza, was by all accounts an honorable man who deserved as honorable a funeral as Tobirama could give him under the circumstances. It wasn’t the man’s fault a demon had lurked under his soul since birth, waiting for his death to emerge and terrorize his neighbors and kin. Such was the fate of the two-souled striga.

Tazuna cleared his throat uncomfortably under the sudden onslaught of sincerity, making noises about getting the caskets for the remains, Tobirama tactfully backed off. He busied himself with the large tome he carried everywhere instead, thumbing through to find a blank page and digging a lead pencil out of the pocket on the strap the tome hung from. By the light of the pyre, he sat and meticulously recorded the events of the hunt.

He’d arrived in this town at dawn, a habit of his to always enter a human establishment during the daytime, and sought the small chapel and its priest first thing, having run low on holy water. The priest, recognizing him by the stag and hound insignia embroidered on his breast, had requested his services as a Hunter as payment.

For the last three nights someone would be found in the woods, dead, gutted, and drained of blood, very obviously not the work of animals. Initial suspicion had been a vampire; the initial suspect, a traveler who’d arrived the night before the first body was found and slept the sleep of the dead all the next day.

A one Madara Uchiha; irritant extraordinaire, and reluctant partner in this instance.

Even being locked up in the one cell the town had to offer didn’t exonerate him when more bodies were found unnaturally, grislily dead.

Having gotten to know him over the course of the night, Tobirama could say for certain he suspected him of being  _ something _ inhuman. What that was, he didn’t much care, then or now. His main concern had been the obvious signs of a striga wandering about, and making delicate inquiries as to who might have suffered a near death experience or survived a seeming death blow with no obvious injury within the last week.

Some tales say a striga will remain dormant after the death of their human soul until they’d been buried. In Tobirama’s experience, this was only the case when the body was obviously injured beyond a human’s ability to recover. More often, someone would get very sick, or take a tumble, or hit their head somehow, or wander about in bad weather, and the time between their death and the demon taking over would be blink and you miss it.

Kaiza had fallen off the roof trying to fix the shingles. His wife, Tsunami, swore up and down she could hear the crunch of his neck hitting the ground from inside the house, and marveled at the time that he only had bruises to show for it.

Now she marveled at still being alive after sharing a bed with a demon for half a week.

Tobirama added a notation under that, further speculation on how much the demon shared the human soul’s opinions on certain people. The demon certainly remembered everything the human knew after all, but there was very little lore on what else the demon absorbed from them. Once discovered, striga weren’t the most cooperative or chatty. Quiet the opposite, really.

He turned to a clean page and sketched a picture of Kaiza, before and after discovery, to the best of his ability.

A soft sound of boots on dirt alerted him to someone trying to get close enough to peer over his shoulder, and he hurriedly snapped the book shut and strapped it closed. He looked up to give Madara a vicious glare for being nosy. Again. Bastard couldn’t seem to leave well enough alone when it came to his book.

This journal was his life, his catalogue, all the knowledge of the supernatural he’s encountered on his travels, all the corrections he’s made to lore. It even held within it instructions of various charms, rituals, blessings, herblore, and curses, great and terrible things alike; exactly the kind of things you did not want to be showing people willy-nilly unless you wanted to leave a body count.

“Can’t blame a man for being curious.” Madara shrugged carelessly under Tobirama’s affront. 

Tobirama rose to his feet and pointedly turned away. “Careful,” he warned. “Can blame a man for many things that curiosity leads to. You might just be the next entry.”

Strangely, Madara grinned at that, teeth carefully tucked behind his lips as usual. “I’ve done nothing worth being hunted for,” he said with all confidence.

“That I know of,” Tobirama retorted.

“That you know of,” Madara agreed with a nod, still grinning under his wide-brimmed floppy hat. “And may I just say once again how fortuitous it is that you stopped by before the townsfolk took matters into their own hands any further? I haven’t seen sunlight in days thanks to them.”

“Quite taxing on you, I’m sure,” Tobirama said dryly. “If you’ll excuse me, the pyre is dying down and the ashes need to be divied up.”

“Of course, of course, don’t let me keep you.” Madara held up his hands and backed away, magnanimous to the point of mocking. “I ought to be on the way myself. I’ve been terribly delayed from a family meeting, thank goodness, and I’m sure they’re running around like headless chickens by now.”

“Safe journey,” Tobirama muttered, already turned to the task of sifting through the pyre with the aid of a long stick. He probably,  _ definitely, _ shouldn’t be letting someone as suspicious as Madara go on his way like this, but he’d built his life on being smart around beings who could rip humans apart with their bare hands and pursuing Madara at this moment really wouldn’t be smart.

What was smart was divvying these ashes into five separate boxes before the cursed remains gathered the wherewithal to regenerate and kill more people, that was his priority, more urgent than a supposed vampire already leaving town.

For now.

Tazuna was coming back, arms full of dull metal caskets. Tobirama’s hand unconsciously drew to the bottle of bloody ink in another pocket of his book strap.

Yes, he definitely had more urgent priorities right now.

* * *

Dawn saw him riding out once more, bright and early, vibrant orange still smearing the horizon through the trees.

He left behind him fresh grief, fading horror, and five freshly turned graves guarding a secret.


	2. Chapter 1

Tanzaku-Gai was a dreary city during the rainy season. Dark overcasts skies, and ever present damp and muck not allowed to dry, cast a depressing pall on the usually bright and bustling streets. The light through windows became misty and enticing with promised warmth, beckoning weary travelers closer through the dark deluge. What windows hadn’t been hidden by sturdy storm shutters to protect their glass panes, that is.

Tobirama cursed as he raised his dinky traveler’s lantern higher in the hopes the pitiful light will reach high enough to see if he’s found the right building yet, cursing louder when it turned out to be the wrong one and he’d have to slog through the mud further. It was late afternoon but you couldn’t tell with the heavy clouds overhead. The rain was coming down hard enough Tobirama had mud up to his knees, and it had definitely slid into his boots.

As a rule, cities were nothing but trouble for hunters. A threat around every corner. Tobirama wouldn’t even  _ be _ here if an old acquaintance hadn’t sent for him.

Sakumo was a decent sort with a good head on his shoulders. Also a former vulkodlak. If Sakumo said there was something lurking about that he needed help with, Tobirama believed him.

If only Sakumo’s house wasn’t so hard to find!

He’s glad he’d thought to put his horse up first; the gelding hated being in the rain. Tobirama couldn’t say he was so fond of it right now either, shivering as cold wetness spread across the back of his neck and trickled down the sleeve of the arm holding the lantern. All the places where his heavy, fur lined cloak couldn’t quite protect him from the downpour.

It took rapping on a few doors to get pointed in the right direction before he managed to find the house.

Sakumo’s careworn face is a welcome sight, as is his hearth fire. 

Tobirama divests his dripping cloak gladly, toeing out of his boots as well so as not to track mud on his way to the warm hearth. Sakumo’s laughing at him not so subtly but whatever, Tobirama doesn’t care, he’s soaking in the warmth. Then he finally deigns to pay attention to the room’s other occupant.

A pair of grey eyes blinked at him from a tiny face, connected to a tiny boy sprawled out on the rug. Tobirama blinked back.

“Sakumo,” Tobirama said over his shoulder, “you’ve spawned.”

“I noticed,” Sakumo said with dry humor. “That’s Kakashi. Baby, you wanna say hello to daddy’s friend?”

Kakashi scrunched his little nose and pointedly turned away in favor of his tiny wooden dogs. 

“He’s shy.” Sakumo shrugged.

“I noticed.”

Soon enough, Sakumo was handing him a bowl of stew, still warm and rich. Seemingly, in between one blink and the next, it was gone, and Sakumo was ushering him to a steaming bathtub to soak the last of the autumn chill from of his bones.

“So what raven tugs your tail, wolf?” Tobirama asked mid-soak, comfortably slumped to look at his host and old friend.

“Aside from you?” Sakumo grinned goodnaturedly, a quicksilver flash, before he turned solemn. “It smells like undead. Powerful undead.”

Tobirama straightened, full attention brought to bear now. “How undead are we talking? When and where? Has it done anything? Is it still in the city that you know of? Details, Sakumo, cough them up! Wait, no, get me a towel first, I need my book.”

“Settle down, the water’s still hot,” Sakumo said, exasperated, moving the towel out of reach. “I can’t really tell you much beyond smells like gravedirt and cinnabar, and it can move about in daylight. It’s discreet, whatever it is. Probably still looks human given I’ve found its trail in some pretty public places.” He grimaced. “I can’t tell you if its done anything in specific. Like I said, it’s discreet.”

“Moves in daylight, good at blending among humans, smells of cinnabar and gravedirt,” Tobirama repeated. “That narrows it down a lot actually. Not sure how much, but we can discount the more common night-bound dead. That also means whatever it is, is statistically likely to be twice as scary as the night-bound dead. Damn.”

“Damn,” Sakumo echoed. “That’s a lovely thought.”

“Isn’t it? Now hand me that towel already, I’m warm enough and I need an early sleep if you’re going to show me around.” Tobirama planted his hands on the side of the tub, prepared to stand. “I swear to god, Sakumo, I will get water all over your floor.”

Sakumo rolled his eyes but relinquished the towel gamely enough. “It’s barely out of late afternoon.”

“Yes, and I’ll be spending the rest of the evening with my book, trying to figure out how fu—” Tobirama hastily corrected, conscious of the toddler that might hear, “uh, endangered Tanzaku-Gai is.” 

* * *

“Keep in mind,” Sakumo warned early the next morning, settling his heavy coat across his shoulders, a grumpy toddler draped over an arm, “my senses aren’t what they used to be since you burned my pelt. I’m lucky I noticed anything what with all the rain. I only caught the scent trail ‘cause it was an unusually clear day and things had a chance to dry a bit.”

“Noted and categorized,” Tobirama said absently, stomping into his boots. “What’s our first stop?”

“A bar,” Sakumo said dryly.

Tobirama looked up from his cloak clasp. “Does this bar also happen to be patron to the local ladies without the benefit of a madam?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Sakumo held the door open in invitation. “That mean something to you?”

“People in high spirits, drinking, having sex, lost in their passions; it’s  _ life, _ Sakumo. Everything the undead can’t touch themselves anymore,” Tobirama replied. He peered suspiciously at the sky, overcast but not raining. Yet. “Plus, people are easier to grab and feed on when they’re insensate from whatever, alcohol or sex.” Tobirama cants a sly look his friend’s way. “Question is; what were  _ you _ doing at a bar?”

“Enjoying the best stew in Tanzaku-Gai, of course.” Sakumo nodded a direction, stepping over a left over puddle. The cobble street was half drowned with them. Subtle tracks in the middle where carts have run ruts are completely underwater, mud seeping up out of cracks in the street. A breeze carrying moisture, a promise of more rain, sweeps down the path with a breathy sigh, ruffling hair and hem.

The bar itself was closed, a sign out front proclaiming in loud print that they didn’t open before noon no matter how desperate you were for booze, and no, you weren’t likely to pay enough to change their minds. About what Tobirama expected of an establishment in Tanzaku-Gai, really.

Sakumo takes him around back where the door to the kitchen is easily shouldered up on its hinges and shoved open. “I smelled it going upstairs,” He said softly, adjusting Kakashi on his shoulder. “This is as far as I take you. I have a young son to think about, I can’t be prodding at undead willy-nilly these days.” Sakumo levels him with a severe expression. “ _ Call me _ if you need help nonetheless. I won’t abandon you.”

Tobirama patted his friend’s shoulder. “Just keep your mind on your responsibilities, wolf. I’ll mind mine.”

Sakumo sighed, perfectly disgusted and a perfect match for his toddler’s resting face. “Yeah, that’s real reassuring. See you, hunter.”

Lovingly, Tobirama shut the door in his face.

Touched as he was by the sentiment, Sakumo had a child to think about now. He didn’t even want to  _ think _ about what would happen if the undead both managed to escape  _ and _ knew about little, helpless Kakashi being a viable target. No, Tobirama would take care of this by himself, the same way he always did; by being smarter and better prepared.

The long knife hidden under his cloak rasped quietly against its sheath as Tobirama drew it from between his shoulder blades. It was no stake, but steel quenched in holy water was no slouch either.

The inn was almost too silent now that he was listening for a noise at all, a hush fallen over it like a bated breath. He ghosted over to the stairs, shifting his weight as softly and carefully as any cat. He pursed his mouth in thought; stairs are tricky, especially worn ones. Sometimes, you could keep them from creaking by stepping on the sides. Others were worn enough in the middle to do the job just fine. And some were just bastards that announced you no matter what you did.

Some people were also not Tobirama.

Tobirama had collected more spells than any three Hunters combined. 

He cupped a hand over his mouth and whispered a soft susurrus of sound, barely discernible as words.

_ I am the wind in the rafters, _ he wills, beginning the climb,  _ I am the creak of a settling house _ .  _ All is well. All is safe. Be not wary or afraid.  _

He lets the spell fizzle as soon as he hits the hallway, wary of even a little cantrip like that tripping otherworldly senses.

The rooms nearest the stairs are clear, or, well, not  _ empty _ but what people are there are living; night-working ladies sleeping off last night’s work. The next two rooms are empty. A third door is a closet. The fourth contained a drunkard, slack-limbed in a way only very young children or very unconscious people ever managed—

He was too still.

Too pale.

A riot of dark hair spilled messily over his face and neck, the odd stray lock curling down his chest, hiding the most obvious indication of a vampire attack. That may not mean much. Other undead fed in different ways; often… messily. Tobirama brought the long knife to bear as he slunk into the room, other hand going for the silver flask at his hip.

Decisively, he popped the cap and flicked a few drops at the sprawled body.

The body jolted upright with a cry, flesh sizzling unpleasantly. “Who the fuck—!?”

Tobirama pounced, shoving the undead down and flat with a hand shoved under his chin, forcing his head back. A strong hand clamped on his arm, bruising, trying to drag him off, and Tobirama quickly brought the knife to bear and stabbed down. The undead’s free hand caught his wrist and Tobirama leaned his entire weight on the knife, pushing it down against inhuman strength slowly, but inexorably.

He took too much weight off his other hand.

The undead jerked to the side, pushing Tobirama’s hands the opposite way, narrowly avoiding a knife below the sternum. A thin burning graze across his ribs a testament to how close it was. Tobirama cursed. His free hand slips through the loose mane of riotous hair, grabbing and yanking in half-thought, half-instinct.

He blinked at the face revealed.

“Madara?”

“Tobirama!?” Madara fair shrieked. “What the hell, you bastard, I wasn’t doing anything!”

Tobirama frowned, then yanked the handful of hair he was holding closer to sniff it, ignoring Madara’s indignant yelp. Hair was very reliable at trapping smells. “You don’t smell like gravedirt and cinnabar.”

“I could have told you that!” Madara shoved him away, wincing as the gash across his ribs pulled.

“Apologies,” Tobirama said shortly, wrenching his knife out of the bed and sheathing it. “It appears you aren’t my target. You really should stop being such a juicy scapegoat when other undead are making mischief. Good day.”

“You’re really leaving just like that!?”

“I said good day, Madara. I’m busy.”

 


End file.
